Can Data Literacy Protect Us from Misleading Political Ads?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Walter Frick at Harvard Business Review: “It’s campaign season in the U.S., and politicians have no compunction about twisting facts and figures, as a quick skim of the fact-checking website Politifact illustrates.

Can data literacy guard against the worst of these offenses? Maybe, according to research.

There is substantial evidence that numeracy can aid critical thinking, and some reason to think it can help in the political realm, within limits. But there is also evidence that numbers can mislead even data-savvy people when it’s in service of those people’s politics.

In a study published at the end of last year, Vittorio Merola of Ohio State University and Matthew Hitt of Louisiana State examined how numeracy might guard against partisan messaging. They showed participants information comparing the costs of probation and prison, and then asked whether participants agreed with the statement, “Probation should be used as an alternative form of punishment, instead of prison, for felons.”

Some of the participants were shown highly relevant numeric information arguing for the benefits of probation: that it costs less and has a better cost-benefit ratio, and that the cost of U.S. prisons has been rising. Another group was shown weaker, less-relevant numeric information. This message didn’t contain anything about the costs or benefits of parole, and instead compared prison costs to transportation spending, with no mention of why these might be at all related. The experiment also varied whether the information was supposedly from a study commissioned by Democrats or Republicans.

The researchers scored participants’ numeracy by asking questions like, “The chance of getting a viral infection is 0.0005. Out of 10,000 people, about how
many of them are expected to get infected?”

For participants who scored low in numeracy, their support depended more on the political party making the argument than on the strength of the data. When the information came from those participants’ own party, they were more likely to agree with it, no matter whether it was weak or strong.

By contrast, participants who scored higher in numeracy were persuaded by the stronger numeric information, even when it came from the other party. The results held up even after accounting for participants’ education, among other variables….

In 2013, Dan Kahan of Yale and several colleagues conducted a study in which they asked participants to draw conclusions from data. In one group, the data was about a treatment for skin rashes, a nonpolitical topic. Another group was asked to evaluate data on gun control, comparing crime rates for cities that have banned concealed weapons to cities that haven’t.

Additionally, in the skin rash group some participants were shown data indicating that the use of skin cream correlated with rashes getting better, while some were shown the opposite. Similarly, some in the gun control group were shown less crime in cities that have banned concealed weapons, while some were shown the reverse…. They found that highly numerate people did better than less-numerate ones in drawing the correct inference in the skin rash case. But comfort with numbers didn’t seem to help when it came to gun control. In fact, highly numerate participants were more polarized over the gun control data than less-numerate ones. The reason seemed to be that the numerate participants used their skill with data selectively, employing it only when doing so helped them reach a conclusion that fit with their political ideology.

Two other lines of research are relevant here.

First, work by Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that numerate people tend to make better forecasts, including about geopolitical events. They’ve also documented that even very basic training in probabilistic thinking can improve one’s forecasting accuracy. And this approach works best, Tetlock argues, when it’s part of a whole style of thinking that emphasizes multiple points of view.

Second, two papers, one from the University of Texas at Austin and one from Princeton, found that partisan bias can be diminished with incentives: People are more likely to report factually correct beliefs about the economy when money is on the line…..(More)”

Social app for refugees and locals translates in real-time

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “Europe is in the middle of a major refugee crisis, with more than one million migrants arriving in 2015 alone. Now, developers in Stockholm are coming up with new ways for arrivals to integrate into their new homes.

Welcome! is an app based in Sweden, a country that has operated a broadly open policy to immigration in recent years. The developers say the app aims to break down social and language barriers between Swedes and refugees. Welcome! is translated into Arabic, Persian, Swedish and English, and it enables users to create, host and join activities, as well as ask questions of locals, chat with new contacts, and browse events that are nearby.

The idea is to solve one of the major difficulties for immigrants arriving in Europe by encouraging the new arrivals and locals to interact and connect, helping the refugees to settle in. The app offers real-time auto-translation through its four languages, and can be downloaded for iOS and Android….We have already seen an initiative in Finland helping to set up startups with refugees…(More)“

Technology for Transparency: Cases from Sub-Saharan Africa

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at Havard Political Review: “Over the last decade, Africa has experienced previously unseen levels of economic growth and market vibrancy. Developing countries can only achieve equitable growth and reduce poverty rates, however, if they are able to make the most of their available resources. To do this, they must maximize the impact of aid from donor governments and NGOs and ensure that domestic markets continue to diversify, add jobs, and generate tax revenues. Yet, in most developing countries, there is a dearth of information available about industry profits, government spending, and policy outcomes that prevents efficient action.

ONE, an international advocacy organization, has estimated that $68.6 billion was lost in sub-Saharan Africa in 2012 due to a lack of transparency in government budgeting….

The Importance of Technology

Increased visibility of problems exerts pressure on politicians and other public sector actors to adjust their actions. This process is known as social monitoring, and it relies on citizens or public agencies using digital tools, such as mobile phones, Facebook, and other social media sites to spot public problems. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, traditional media companies and governments have not shown consistency in reporting on transparency issues.

New technologies offer a solution to this problem. Philip Thigo, the creator of an online and SMS platform that monitors government spending, said in an interview with Technology for Transparency, “All we are trying to do is enhance the work that [governments] do. We thought that if we could create a clear channel where communities could actually access data, then the work of government would be easier.” Networked citizen media platforms that rely on the volunteer contributions of citizens have become increasingly popular. Given that in most African countries less than 10 percent of the population has Internet access, mobile-device-based programs have proven the logical solution. About 30 percent of the population continent-wide has access to cell phones.

Lova Rakotomalala, a co-founder of an NGO in Madagascar that promotes online exposure of social grassroots projects, told the HPR, “most Malagasies will have a mobile phone and an FM radio because it helps them in their daily lives.” Rakotomalala works to provide workshops and IT training to people in regions of Madagascar where Internet access has been recently introduced. According to him, “the amount of data that we can collect from social monitoring and transparency projects will only grow in the near future. There is much room for improvement.”

Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool

The Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool is a prominent example of how social media technology can help obviate traditional transparency issues. Despite increased development assistance and foreign aid, the number of Kenyans classified as poor grew from 29 percent in the 1970s to almost 60 percent in 2000. Noticing this trend, Philip Thigo created an online and SMS platform called the Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool. The platform specifically focuses on the Constituencies Development Fund, through which members of the Kenyan parliament are able to allocate resources towards various projects, such as physical infrastructure, government offices, or new schools.

This social monitoring technology has exposed real government abuses. …

Another mobile tool, Question Box, allows Ugandans to call or message operators who have access to a database full of information on health, agriculture, and education.

But tools like Medic Mobile and the Kenyan Budget Tracking Tool are only the first steps in solving the problems that plague corrupt governments and underdeveloped communities. Improved access to information is no substitute for good leadership. However, as Rakotomalala argued, it is an important stepping-stone. “While legally binding actions are the hammer to the nail, you need to put the proverbial nail in the right place first. That nail is transparency.”…(More)

Data to the Rescue: Smart Ways of Doing Good

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Nicole Wallace in the Chronicle of Philanthropy: “For a long time, data served one purpose in the nonprofit world: measuring program results. But a growing number of charities are rejecting the idea that data equals evaluation and only evaluation.

Of course, many nonprofits struggle even to build the simplest data system. They have too little money, too few analysts, and convoluted data pipelines. Yet some cutting-edge organizations are putting data to work in new and exciting ways that drive their missions. A prime example: The Polaris Project is identifying criminal networks in the human-trafficking underworld and devising strategies to fight back by analyzing its data storehouse along with public information.

Other charities dive deep into their data to improve services, make smarter decisions, and identify measures that predict success. Some have such an abundance of information that they’re even pruning their collection efforts to allow for more sophisticated analysis.

The groups highlighted here are among the best nationally. In their work, we get a sneak peek at how the data revolution might one day achieve its promise.

House Calls: Living Goods…

Living Goods launched in eastern Africa in 2007 with an innovative plan to tackle health issues in poor families and reduce deaths among children. The charity provides loans, training, and inventory to locals in Uganda and Kenya — mostly women — to start businesses selling vitamins, medicine, and other health products to friends and neighbors.

Founder Chuck Slaughter copied the Avon model and its army of housewives-turned-sales agents. But in recent years, Living Goods has embraced a 21st-century data system that makes its entrepreneurs better health practitioners. Armed with smartphones, they confidently diagnose and treat major illnesses. At the same time, they collect information that helps the charity track health across communities and plot strategy….

Unraveling Webs of Wickedness: Polaris Project…

Calls and texts to the Polaris Project’s national human-trafficking hotline are often heartbreaking, terrifying, or both.

Relatives fear that something terrible has happened to a missing loved one. Trafficking survivors suffering from their ordeal need support. The most harrowing calls are from victims in danger and pleading for help.

Last year more than 5,500 potential cases of exploitation for labor or commercial sex were reported to the hotline. Since it got its start in 2007, the total is more than 24,000.

As it helps victims and survivors get the assistance they need, the Polaris Project, a Washington nonprofit, is turning those phone calls and texts into an enormous storehouse of information about the shadowy world of trafficking. By analyzing this data and connecting it with public sources, the nonprofit is drawing detailed pictures of how trafficking networks operate. That knowledge, in turn, shapes the group’s prevention efforts, its policy work, and even law-enforcement investigations….

Too Much Information: Year Up…

Year Up has a problem that many nonprofits can’t begin to imagine: It collects too much data about its program. “Predictive analytics really start to stink it up when you put too much in,” says Garrett Yursza Warfield, the group’s director of evaluation.

What Mr. Warfield describes as the “everything and the kitchen sink” problem started soon after Year Up began gathering data. The group, which fights poverty by helping low-income young adults land entry-level professional jobs, first got serious about measuring its work nearly a decade ago. Though challenged at first to round up even basic information, the group over time began tracking virtually everything it could: the percentage of young people who finish the program, their satisfaction, their paths after graduation through college or work, and much more.

Now the nonprofit is diving deeper into its data to figure out which measures can predict whether a young person is likely to succeed in the program. And halfway through this review, it’s already identified and eliminated measures that it’s found matter little. A small example: Surveys of participants early in the program asked them to rate their proficiency at various office skills. Those self-evaluations, Mr. Warfield’s team concluded, were meaningless: How can novice professionals accurately judge their Excel spreadsheet skills until they’re out in the working world?…

On the Wild Side: Wildnerness Society…Without room to roam, wild animals and plants breed among themselves and risk losing genetic diversity. They also fall prey to disease. And that’s in the best of times. As wildlife adapt to climate change, the chance to migrate becomes vital even to survival.

National parks and other large protected areas are part of the answer, but they’re not enough if wildlife can’t move between them, says Travis Belote, lead ecologist at the Wilderness Society.

“Nature needs to be able to shuffle around,” he says.

Enter the organization’s Wildness Index. It’s a national map that shows the parts of the country most touched by human activity as well as wilderness areas best suited for wildlife. Mr. Belote and his colleagues created the index by combining data on land use, population density, road location and size, water flows, and many other factors. It’s an important tool to help the nonprofit prioritize the locations it fights to protect.

In Idaho, for example, the nonprofit compares the index with information about known wildlife corridors and federal lands that are unprotected but meet the criteria for conservation designation. The project’s goal: determine which areas in the High Divide — a wild stretch that connects Greater Yellowstone with other protected areas — the charity should advocate to legally protect….(More)”

See also HOW NONPROFITS CAN PUT DATA TO USE

Selected Readings on Data and Humanitarian Response

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

By Prianka Srinivasan and Stefaan G. Verhulst *

The Living Library’s Selected Readings series seeks to build a knowledge base on innovative approaches for improving the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance. This curated and annotated collection of recommended works on the topic of data and humanitarian response was originally published in 2016.

Data, when used well in a trusted manner, allows humanitarian organizations to innovate how to respond to emergency events, including better coordination of post-disaster relief efforts, the ability to harness local knowledge to create more targeted relief strategies, and tools to predict and monitor disasters in real time. Consequently, in recent years both multinational groups and community-based advocates have begun to integrate data collection and evaluation strategies into their humanitarian operations, to better and more quickly respond to emergencies. However, this movement poses a number of challenges. Compared to the private sector, humanitarian organizations are often less equipped to successfully analyze and manage big data, which pose a number of risks related to the security of victims’ data. Furthermore, complex power dynamics which exist within humanitarian spaces may be further exacerbated through the introduction of new technologies and big data collection mechanisms. In the below we share:

  • Selected Reading List (summaries and hyperlinks)
  • Annotated Selected Reading List
  • Additional Readings

Selected Reading List  (summaries in alphabetical order)

Data and Humanitarian Response

Risks of Using Big Data in Humanitarian Context

Annotated Selected Reading List (in alphabetical order)

Karlsrud, John. “Peacekeeping 4.0: Harnessing the Potential of Big Data, Social Media, and Cyber Technologies.” Cyberspace and International Relations, 2013. http://bit.ly/235Qb3e

  • This chapter from the book “Cyberspace and International Relations” suggests that advances in big data give humanitarian organizations unprecedented opportunities to prevent and mitigate natural disasters and humanitarian crises. However, the sheer amount of unstructured data necessitates effective “data mining” strategies for multinational organizations to make the most use of this data.
  • By profiling some civil-society organizations who use big data in their peacekeeping efforts, Karlsrud suggests that these community-focused initiatives are leading the movement toward analyzing and using big data in countries vulnerable to crisis.
  • The chapter concludes by offering ten recommendations to UN peacekeeping forces to best realize the potential of big data and new technology in supporting their operations.

Mancini, Fancesco. “New Technology and the prevention of Violence and Conflict.” International Peace Institute, 2013. http://bit.ly/1ltLfNV

  • This report from the International Peace Institute looks at five case studies to assess how information and communications technologies (ICTs) can help prevent humanitarian conflicts and violence. Their findings suggest that context has a significant impact on the ability for these ICTs for conflict prevention, and any strategies must take into account the specific contingencies of the region to be successful.
  • The report suggests seven lessons gleaned from the five case studies:
    • New technologies are just one in a variety of tools to combat violence. Consequently, organizations must investigate a variety of complementary strategies to prevent conflicts, and not simply rely on ICTs.
    • Not every community or social group will have the same relationship to technology, and their ability to adopt new technologies are similarly influenced by their context. Therefore, a detailed needs assessment must take place before any new technologies are implemented.
    • New technologies may be co-opted by violent groups seeking to maintain conflict in the region. Consequently, humanitarian groups must be sensitive to existing political actors and be aware of possible negative consequences these new technologies may spark.
    • Local input is integral to support conflict prevention measures, and there exists need for collaboration and awareness-raising with communities to ensure new technologies are sustainable and effective.
    • Information shared between civil-society has more potential to develop early-warning systems. This horizontal distribution of information can also allow communities to maintain the accountability of local leaders.

Meier, Patrick. “Digital humanitarians: how big data is changing the face of humanitarian response.” Crc Press, 2015. http://amzn.to/1RQ4ozc

  • This book traces the emergence of “Digital Humanitarians”—people who harness new digital tools and technologies to support humanitarian action. Meier suggests that this has created a “nervous system” to connect people from disparate parts of the world, revolutionizing the way we respond to humanitarian crises.
  • Meier argues that such technology is reconfiguring the structure of the humanitarian space, where victims are not simply passive recipients of aid but can contribute with other global citizens. This in turn makes us more humane and engaged people.

Robertson, Andrew and Olson, Steve. “Using Data Sharing to Improve Coordination in Peacebuilding.” United States Institute for Peace, 2012. http://bit.ly/235QuLm

  • This report functions as an overview of a roundtable workshop on Technology, Science and Peace Building held at the United States Institute of Peace. The workshop aimed to investigate how data-sharing techniques can be developed for use in peace building or conflict management.
  • Four main themes emerged from discussions during the workshop:
    • “Data sharing requires working across a technology-culture divide”—Data sharing needs the foundation of a strong relationship, which can depend on sociocultural, rather than technological, factors.
    • “Information sharing requires building and maintaining trust”—These relationships are often built on trust, which can include both technological and social perspectives.
    • “Information sharing requires linking civilian-military policy discussions to technology”—Even when sophisticated data-sharing technologies exist, continuous engagement between different stakeholders is necessary. Therefore, procedures used to maintain civil-military engagement should be broadened to include technology.
    • “Collaboration software needs to be aligned with user needs”—technology providers need to keep in mind the needs of its users, in this case peacebuilders, in order to ensure sustainability.

United Nations Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. “A World That Counts, Mobilizing the Data Revolution.” 2014. https://bit.ly/2Cb3lXq

  • This report focuses on the potential benefits and risks data holds for sustainable development. Included in this is a strategic framework for using and managing data for humanitarian purposes. It describes a need for a multinational consensus to be developed to ensure data is shared effectively and efficiently.
  • It suggests that “people who are counted”—i.e., those who are included in data collection processes—have better development outcomes and a better chance for humanitarian response in emergency or conflict situations.

Katie Whipkey and Andrej Verity. “Guidance for Incorporating Big Data into Humanitarian Operations.” Digital Humanitarian Network, 2015. http://bit.ly/1Y2BMkQ

  • This report produced by the Digital Humanitarian Network provides an overview of big data, and how humanitarian organizations can integrate this technology into their humanitarian response. It primarily functions as a guide for organizations, and provides concise, brief outlines of what big data is, and how it can benefit humanitarian groups.
  • The report puts forward four main benefits acquired through the use of big data by humanitarian organizations: 1) the ability to leverage real-time information; 2) the ability to make more informed decisions; 3) the ability to learn new insights; 4) the ability for organizations to be more prepared.
  • It goes on to assess seven challenges big data poses for humanitarian organizations: 1) geography, and the unequal access to technology across regions; 2) the potential for user error when processing data; 3) limited technology; 4) questionable validity of data; 5) underdeveloped policies and ethics relating to data management; 6) limitations relating to staff knowledge.

Risks of Using Big Data in Humanitarian Context
Crawford, Kate, and Megan Finn. “The limits of crisis data: analytical and ethical challenges of using social and mobile data to understand disasters.” GeoJournal 80.4, 2015. http://bit.ly/1X0F7AI

  • Crawford & Finn present a critical analysis of the use of big data in disaster management, taking a more skeptical tone to the data revolution facing humanitarian response.
  • They argue that though social and mobile data analysis can yield important insights and tools in crisis events, it also presents a number of limitations which can lead to oversights being made by researchers or humanitarian response teams.
  • Crawford & Finn explore the ethical concerns the use of big data in disaster events introduces, including issues of power, privacy, and consent.
  • The paper concludes by recommending that critical data studies, such as those presented in the paper, be integrated into crisis event research in order to analyze some of the assumptions which underlie mobile and social data.

Jacobsen, Katja Lindskov (2010) Making design safe for citizens: A hidden history of humanitarian experimentation. Citizenship Studies 14.1: 89-103. http://bit.ly/1YaRTwG

  • This paper explores the phenomenon of “humanitarian experimentation,” where victims of disaster or conflict are the subjects of experiments to test the application of technologies before they are administered in greater civilian populations.
  • By analyzing the particular use of iris recognition technology during the repatriation of Afghan refugees to Pakistan in 2002 to 2007, Jacobsen suggests that this “humanitarian experimentation” compromises the security of already vulnerable refugees in order to better deliver biometric product to the rest of the world.

Responsible Data Forum. “Responsible Data Reflection Stories: An Overview.” http://bit.ly/1Rszrz1

  • This piece from the Responsible Data forum is primarily a compilation of “war stories” which follow some of the challenges in using big data for social good. By drawing on these crowdsourced cases, the Forum also presents an overview which makes key recommendations to overcome some of the challenges associated with big data in humanitarian organizations.
  • It finds that most of these challenges occur when organizations are ill-equipped to manage data and new technologies, or are unaware about how different groups interact in digital spaces in different ways.

Sandvik, Kristin Bergtora. “The humanitarian cyberspace: shrinking space or an expanding frontier?” Third World Quarterly 37:1, 17-32, 2016. http://bit.ly/1PIiACK

  • This paper analyzes the shift toward more technology-driven humanitarian work, where humanitarian work increasingly takes place online in cyberspace, reshaping the definition and application of aid. This has occurred along with what many suggest is a shrinking of the humanitarian space.
  • Sandvik provides three interpretations of this phenomena:
    • First, traditional threats remain in the humanitarian space, which are both modified and reinforced by technology.
    • Second, new threats are introduced by the increasing use of technology in humanitarianism, and consequently the humanitarian space may be broadening, not shrinking.
    • Finally, if the shrinking humanitarian space theory holds, cyberspace offers one example of this, where the increasing use of digital technology to manage disasters leads to a contraction of space through the proliferation of remote services.

Additional Readings on Data and Humanitarian Response

* Thanks to: Kristen B. Sandvik; Zara Rahman; Jennifer Schulte; Sean McDonald; Paul Currion; Dinorah Cantú-Pedraza and the Responsible Data Listserve for valuable input.

How to train Public Entrepreneurs

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

10 Lessons : “…The GovLab and its network of 25 world-class coaches and over 100 mentors helped 446 participants in more thana dozen US cities and thirty foreign countries to take a public interest technology project from idea to implementation. In the process, we ‘ve learned a lot about the need for new ways of training the next generation of leaders and problem solvers.

Our aim has been to aid public entrepreneurs — passionate and innovative people who wish to take advantage of new technology to do good in the world. That’s why we measure success, not by the number of participants in a class, but by the project’s participants create and the impact those projects have on communities….

Lesson 1: There is growing, and unmet, demand for training a new kind of public servant: the public entrepreneur…

Lesson 2: Tap the distributed supply of talent and expertise to accelerate learning…

Lesson 3:  Create new methods for training public entrepreneurs to solve problems…

Lesson 4:  Develop tools to help public interest innovators “cross the chasm” from idea to implementation…

Lesson 5:  Teach collaboration and partnering for change…

Lesson 6:  In order to be successful, public entrepreneurs must be able to define the problem — a skill widely lacking…

Lesson 7:  Connecting innovators and alumni with one another generates a lasting public infrastructure that can help solve problems more effectively…

Lesson 8:  Pedagogical priorities include making problem solving more data driven and evidence based….

Lesson 9:  The demand and supply are global — which requires a global mindset and platform in order to learn what has worked elsewhere and why…

Lesson 10:  Collaboration and coordination among anchor organizations is key to meeting the demand and coordinating the supply….(More)

Mapping a flood of new data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Rebecca Lipman at Economist Intelligence Unit Perspectives on “One city tweets to stay dry: From drones to old-fashioned phone calls, data come from many unlikely sources. In a disaster, such as a flood or earthquake, responders will take whatever information they can get to visualise the crisis and best direct their resources. Increasingly, cities prone to natural disasters are learning to better aid their citizens by empowering their local agencies and responders with sophisticated tools to cut through the large volume and velocity of disaster-related data and synthesise actionable information.

Consider the plight of the metro area of Jakarta, Indonesia, home to some 28m people, 13 rivers and 1,100 km of canals. With 40% of the city below sea level (and sinking), and regularly subject to extreme weather events including torrential downpours in monsoon season, Jakarta’s residents face far-too-frequent, life-threatening floods. Despite the unpredictability of flooding conditions, citizens have long taken a passive approach that depended on government entities to manage the response. But the information Jakarta’s responders had on the flooding conditions was patchy at best. So in the last few years, the government began to turn to the local population for help. It helped.

Today, Jakarta’s municipal government is relying on the web-based PetaJakarta.org project and a handful of other crowdsourcing mobile apps such as Qlue and CROP to collect data and respond to floods and other disasters. Through these programmes, crowdsourced, time-sensitive data derived from citizens’ social-media inputs have made it possible for city agencies to more precisely map the locations of rising floods and help the residents at risk. In January 2015, for example, the web-based Peta Jakarta received 5,209 reports on floods via tweets with detailed text and photos. Anytime there’s a flood, Peta Jakarta’s data from the tweets are mapped and updated every minute, and often cross-checked by Jakarta Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) officials through calls with community leaders to assess the information and guide responders.

But in any city Twitter is only one piece of a very large puzzle. …

Even with such life-and-death examples, government agencies remain deeply protective of data because of issues of security, data ownership and citizen privacy. They are also concerned about liability issues if incorrect data lead to an activity that has unsuccessful outcomes. These concerns encumber the combination of crowdsourced data with operational systems of record, and impede the fast progress needed in disaster situations….Download the case study .”

Crowdsourcing Human Rights

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Faisal Al Mutar at The World Post: “The Internet has also allowed activists to access information as never before. I recently joined the Movements.org team, a part of the New York-based organization, Advancing Human Rights. This new platform allows activists from closed societies to connect directly with people around the world with skills to help them. In the first month of its launch, thousands of activists from 92 countries have come to Movements.org to defend human rights.

Movements.org is a promising example of how technology can be utilized by activists to change the world. Dissidents from some of the most repressive dictatorships — Russia, Iran, Syria and China — are connecting with individuals from around the globe who have unique skills to aid them.

Here are just a few of the recent success stories:

  • A leading Saudi expert on combatting state-sponsored incitement in textbooks posted a request to speak with members of the German government due to their strict anti-hate-speech laws. A former foundation executive connected him with senior German officials.
  • A secular Syrian group posted a request for PR aid to explain to Americans that the opposition is not comprised solely of radical elements. The founder of a strategic communication firm based in Los Angeles responded and offered help.
  • A Yemeni dissident asked for help creating a radio station focused on youth empowerment. He was contacted by a Syrian dissident who set up Syrian radio programs to offer advice.
  • Journalists from leading newspapers offered to tell human rights stories and connected with activists from dictatorships.
  • A request was created for a song to commemorate the life of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russia tax lawyer who died in prisoner. A NYC-based song-writer created a beautiful song and activists from Russia (including a member of Pussy Riot) filmed a music video of it.
  • North Korean defectors posted requests to get information in and out of their country and technologists posted offers to help with radio and satellite communication systems.
  • A former Iranian political prisoner posted a request to help sustain his radio station which broadcasts into Iran and helps keep information flowing to Iranians.

There are more and more cases everyday….(More)”

Technology and politics: The signal and the noise

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Special Issue of The Economist: “…The way these candidates are fighting their campaigns,each in his own way, is proof that politics as usual is no longer an option. The internet and the availability of huge piles of data on everyone and everything are transforming the democratic process, just as they are upending many industries. They are becoming a force in all kinds of things,from running election campaigns and organising protest movements to improving public policy and the delivery of services. This special report will argue that, as a result, the relationship between citizens and those who govern them is changing fundamentally.

Incongruous though it may seem, the forces that are now powering the campaign of Mr Trump—as well as that ofBernie Sanders, the surprise candidate on the Democratic side (Hillary Clinton is less of a success online)—were first seen in full cry during the Arab spring in 2011. The revolution in Egypt and other Arab countries was not instigated by Twitter, Facebook and other social-media services, but they certainly help edit gain momentum. “The internet is an intensifier,” says Marc Lynch of GeorgeWashington University, a noted scholar of the protest movements in the region…..

However, this special report will argue that, in the longer term, online crusading and organising will turn out to matter less to politics in the digital age than harnessing those ever-growing piles of data. The internet and related technologies, such as smart phones and cloud computing, make it cheap and easy not only to communicate but also to collect, store and analyse immense quantities of information. This is becoming ever more important in influencing political outcomes.

America’s elections are a case in point. Mr Cruz with his data savvy is merely following in the footsteps of Barack Obama, who won his first presidential term with the clever application of digital know-how. Campaigners are hoovering up more and more digital information about every voting-age citizen and stashing it away in enormous databases.With the aid of complex algorithms, these data allow campaigners to decide, say, who needs to be reminded to make the trip to the polling station and who may be persuaded to vote for a particular candidate.

No hiding place

In the case of protest movements, the waves of collective action leave a big digital footprint. Using ever more sophisticated algorithms, governments can mine these data.That is changing the balance of power. In the event of another Arab spring, autocrats would not be caught off guard again because they are now able to monitor protests and intervene when they consider it necessary. They can also identify and neutralise the most influential activists. Governments that were digitally blind when the internet first took off in the mid-1990s now have both a telescope and a microscope.

But data are not just changing campaigns and political movements; they affect how policy is made and public services are offered. This is most visible at local-government level. Cities have begun to use them for everything from smoothing traffic flows to identifying fire hazards. Having all this information at their fingertips is bound to change the way these bureaucracies work, and how they interact with citizens. This will not only make cities more efficient, but provide them with data and tools that could help them involve their citizens more.

This report will look at electoral campaigns, protest movements and local government in turn. Readers will note that most of the examples quoted are American and that most of the people quoted are academics. That is because the study of the interrelationship between data and politics is relatively new and most developed in America. But it is beginning to spill out from the ivory towers, and is gradually spreading to other countries.

The growing role of technology in politics raises many questions. How much of a difference, for instance, do digitally enabled protest surges really make? Many seem to emerge from nowhere, then crash almost as suddenly, defeated by hard political realities and entrenched institutions. The Arab spring uprising in Egypt is one example. Once the incumbent president, Hosni Mubarak, was toppled, the coalition that brought him down fell apart, leaving the stage to the old powers, first the Muslim Brotherhood and then the armed forces.

In party politics, some worry that the digital targeting of voters might end up reducing the democratic process to a marketing exercise. Ever more data and better algorithms, they fret, could lead politicians to ignore those unlikely to vote for them. And in cities it is no tclear that more data will ensure that citizens become more engaged….(More)

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Big data, meet behavioral science

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Ben Castleman at Brookings: “America’s community colleges offer the promise of a more affordable pathway to a bachelor’s degree. Students can pay substantially less for the first two years of college, transfer to a four-year college or university, and still earn their diploma in the same amount of time. At least in theory. Most community college students—80 percent of them—enter with the intention to transfer, but only 20 percent actually do so within five years of entering college. This divide represents a classic case of what behavioralists call an intention-action gap.

Why would so many students who enter community colleges intending to transfer fail to actually do so? Put yourself in the shoes of a 20-something community college student. You’ve worked hard for the past couple years, earning credits and paying a lot less in tuition than you would have if you had enrolled immediately in a four-year college or university. But now you want to transfer, so that you can complete your bachelor’s degree. How do you figure out where to go? Ideally you’d probably like to find a college that would take most of your credits, where you’re likely to graduate from, and where the degree is going to count for something in the labor market. A college advisor could probably help you figure this out,but at many community colleges there are at least 1,000 other students assigned to your advisor, so you might have a hard time getting a quality meeting.  Some states have articulation agreements between two- and four-year institutions that guarantee admission for students who complete certain course sequences and perform at a high enough level. But these agreements are often dense and inaccessible.

The combination of big data and behavioral insights has the potential to help students navigate these complex decisions and successfully follow through on their intentions. Big data analytic techniques allow us to identify concrete transfer pathways where students are positioned to succeed; behavioral insights ensure we communicate these options in a way that maximizes students’ engagement and responsiveness…..A growing body of innovative research has demonstrated that, by applying behavioral science insights to the way we communicate with students and families about the opportunities and resources available to them, we can help people navigate these complex decisions and experience better outcomes as a result. A combination of simplified information, reminders, and access to assistance have improved achievement and attainment up and down the education pipeline, nudging parents to practice early-literacy activities with their kids or check in with their high schoolers about missed assignments, andencouraging students to renew their financial aid for college….

These types of big data techniques are already being used in some education sectors. For instance, a growing number of colleges use predictive analytics to identify struggling students who need additional assistance, so faculty and administrators can intervene before the student drops out. But frequently there is insufficient attention, once the results of these predictive analyses are in hand, about how to communicate the information in a way that is likely to lead to behavior change among students or educators. And much of the predictive analytics work has been on the side of plugging leaks in the pipeline (e.g. preventing drop-outs from higher education), rather than on the side of proactively sending students and families personalized information about educational and career pathways where they are likely to flourish…(More)”